For some reason, the text of this post vanished. I had written some cool stuff about how Dylan is psyched for his Spanish Immerison elementary school and he’s way into capoeira (as you can see in the pictures). Alas, ’tis gone. I’ll have to write more.
New Year’s Greeting
If we were running an election based on our lives, the theme would have to be “Good Schools for All!” Adela has jumped with two feet into pre-school, Dylan is ready for college-level math, and Matt and Jeannette are spending free moments (did we just say free moments?) visiting elementary schools where we might be sending Dylan next year. Add in our continued professional work improving education, and it seems to be all about schools…
From youngest to oldest, here are the updates:
Adela is two going on twelve. She continues to mimic everything her brother does and to express herself primarily through song. Anyone coming to visit should ask her to give her rendition of “Oh, Susannah,” or “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” or “Loch Lomond” (you know, “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road…”). And when she’s not singing, she’s usually talking. Some of her favorites expressions are “I’ll do it myself” and “I’m a dragon!” She still spends most of her days at the “parque” and the “cafe” with her expert caregiver Mirian Vasquez and her playmate Diego Oberman, but she has also begun part-time preschool and has become an expert tea party hostess. We started her on swimming and she’s proven to be as much a fish as her mom.
Dylan is on the verge of being five and there are some clear indications that he’s a big boy. He’s had multiple sleepovers, he can’t wait to start kindergarten, and he broke his first bone. San Francisco has incredible public school choices and we’re debating between Spanish and Mandarin immersion programs, but if Matt has his way, Dylan will be attending the Chelsea soccer academy. Our efforts to convince him that winning isn’t everything continue to fail miserably, but his competiveness translates into some jaw-dropping skill on the soccer field, tennis courts, and just about any other sports venue. When he isn’t running or bouncing, he’s usually drawing pirates or superheroes or robots and it has been a joy to watch him grow as an artist and a storyteller. Perhaps most amazing is his excitement about math (props to Montessori for their early exposure to conceptual mathematics), which is most evident when he’s beating us at blackjack.
Matt is completing his first year at The James Irvine Foundation, which has provided extraordinary vistas on the opportunities and challenges facing California. Among the things that he knows now are: (1) If you want to understand California, you have to spend some time in the Central Valley, (2) it’s very hot in Palm Springs in August, and (3) there are some extraordinary high schools around the state that are using innovative approaches to get more kids through high school and on to college and career. Before starting at Irvine, Matt took a month sabatical, spending his days brushing up on Spanish and piano. Matt is also excited to have been asked to be a lecturer at Stanford this winter; he will be teaching a graduate seminar on policy analysis in education, with a focus (surprise, surprise) on the role of school districts within the broader system of public education. He’s sticking with soccer for at least one more year and will actually be the old man on the team this year… maybe next year, he’ll switch to coaching Dylan.
Jeannette continues her work at Envision Schools as the VP of Instruction and loves working with an exceptional team of people committed to changing the way young people experience high school and improving their educational outcomes. The students who started at Envision Schools with her in August 2004 are lining up for graduation in June 2008, and college acceptances are rolling in. Besides relishing her time with Matt, Dylan & Adela, she manages a few “playdates” of her own with friends. One elaborate playdate was a fun trip east to D.C. for the Stanford-in-Washington program 20th reunion where she caught up with dear friends, met Justice Breyer and stopped in on the Kelemen/Bosquet clan. The Bethany church community is a major source of inspiration, and training for the 2009 AIDS Ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles will hopefully be as well. Stay tuned!
Travel was relatively light in 2007, but included a great 10-day stay at the Delaware shore in July, where we were joined for portions by our entire families and by Jeannette’s college crew. All in all, more than 30 people were part of that trip. We also joined the Cones in Vermont to celebrate Michael’s college graduation, the last of a generation. Dylan was the most traveled member of our family, with a March ski trip with Mom and the LaFors boys in Colorado and a September trip with Dad to meet baby Jonah in Baltimore. Holidays were spent with family, including Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania with the LaFors gang and an encore Key West trip for Christmas, this time with the Kelemen clan (7 kids under the age of 6!).
When we stayed put, it was a banner year for visitors to our home in the San Francisco hills. Friends and family came from as far as Zimbabwe and Arctic Canada, and we used these occasions and others to explore the Bay Area and beyond. One highlight was a bookclub-inspired trek to the Masumoto Farm outside Fresno to harvest organic Elberta peaches, slices of which are still in our freezer. Here in San Francisco, we are enjoying new friendships with preschool parents, usually involving conversations over pancakes while our children play knights, pirates, and princesses. We hope that 2008 brings even more visits from friends and family.
As we enter the exciting times of an election season, our hopes rise for positive changes and we look forward to continuing to work for peace and justice.
Wishing you all peace in the new year,
Matt, Jeannette, Dylan, and Adela
Happenin’ Halloween
Dylan is our family costume coordinator, and this year he “pointed” us to a cast of characters we all agreed would be fun to portray. Halloween arrived with much anticipation at our house. The day before Halloween, Adela premiered her costume publicly at the neighborhood playgroup, and Dylan commented, “Only one more day until Halloween — Yeah!” Both Dylan and Adela donned their costumes for the Glen Park Montessori Halloween parade to local merchants at noon, and our neighborhood ghouls and gobblins decked out their homes for a lively local Trick-or-Treat evening venture, complete with a cool, eerie fog. A classmate of Dylan’s joined us with his parents for a fun evening peppered with our neighborhood kids’ ooohs and aaahs at Matt’s transformation while he doled out candy.